


The Ethereal

by Nayva



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I'm trying not to spoil it with all these tags, Jack can be seen by everyone, Jack can fight, Jack loses his staff, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Mystery, Obsessed Dino Golzine, Older Brother Eiji, Protective Gaurdians, but I swear it'll be good
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 15:20:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17388833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nayva/pseuds/Nayva
Summary: e·the·re·al/əˈTHirēəl/adjective1. extremely delicate and light in a way that seems too perfect for this world.Ash Lynx, along with Max and Ibe, have nearly escaped the Banana Fish experimental lab posing as a psychiatric facility when they discover a room where a young boy with pale skin and white hair is being kept. They decide to save him but Ash could not have expected the repercussions.*Begins from Banana Fish episode 16*





	1. The Boy in the Water

**Author's Note:**

> Ash has to find another form of proof when the man he needed is lost while he tried to escape the Banana Fish experimental facility. That search leads him and Max to a certain winter spirit who’s locked up deep.

 Ash has had his fair share of moments that required a certain flare of seduction. Fortunately, he has also had a lot of practice. Reluctant and forceful as it was. That is why it was second nature to use his cursed good looks to attract one of the security guards watching his cell, kill him, and take his key card. Ash did say he’d send him to heaven, didn’t he?

He ran down the hallways, stuffing the guard's key card into his white pants as he went. He’d observed no windows in the facility so escape wasn’t going to be easy. But he’s used to that. As two workers in lab coats pass him, lustfully speaking of a woman they both wanted, Ash quietly hides and then creeps through an air duct near him.

Creeping into the air duct meant it was only a matter of time before the rest of the guards in the surveillance room noticed his absence and pieced everything together, even if they are naturally idiots. Ash crawls on all fours, the noise made from the sensitive metal making him cringe in worry. He picks random paths since the schematics of the lab weren’t imbued in his brain but luckily ends up in a sort of experimental room.

_Weapon. I need a weapon._

Ash went through the drawers, spotting a stash of surgical scissors. He heard the guards outside.

“He couldn't have gotten far. Find him.”

So they had noticed. Good for them.

Ash grabbed some of the scissors and placed them in the insides of his pants, wrapped to his ankle by an elastic band. Ash exits the room and hears more guards speaking to one another. One saying that they found him. After an order is given, they separate and allow Ash to enter into a room with exactly what he needed: a computer.

He inserted the key card and opened up the map of the lab.

The doctor who had wanted to rip out his brain was the one who showed him Alexis Dawson. If Banana Fish could bring about such a stupid vegetable like him then Ash needed the proof. He needed to find the man. He finds his room registered on the monitor.

“He’s here!”

Ash turns to see a guard on the other side of the glass. Instinctively, he grabs the gun he stole from the guard and shot the man, cracking the glass as the bullet went through it.

Ash runs down the hall. He quickly finds Dawson’s room and after evading more stupid guards, he uses the key card to open it and sees the man in the same place the doctor had left him.

“You’re coming with me. You’re living proof.”

Dawson just looks at Ash for a moment. Then his lips begin to move. Softly, he speaks.

“Beautiful boy...”

The man said it to him, but Ash felt like Dawson was staring right through him as if Ash wasn’t there at all.

Shaking off the old man’s weird ramble, Ash grabs him by the wrist and drags him out. They walk slowly down the hall, Ash having to check around corners for any guards.

“I think it’s safe now,” he says, if only to himself, before they turn a corner.

“Somebody! A patient is loose!”

_Shit!_

Ash turns to glare at the nurse who screamed, turns back and runs. The guard behind him radio’s the security center as they disappear around the corner. They are on the 14th floor, North Ward, Block C. Ash memorized the map and knew exactly where to go. Sometimes his magnificent brain was actually not a curse.

“Beautiful boy...”

Ash dismisses Dawson’s words as the ones of a crazy idiot, but they distract him long enough to not see the hall beginning to be blocked by a falling metal wall.

_Dammit!_

Ash grabs Dawson.

“Time to go, old man!”

He throws him through the entry. Ash then ran and masterfully slid on the floor through the slit that the closing door left just as it closed completely. He breathes heavily through his mouth.

“Beautiful boy...”

Ash stands straight and groans at the crazy man who was slumped with his face on the floor.

“Beautiful boy...,” he says again, his words muffled by the fact that his face was literally plastered in the floor.

_Well, he’s useless now._

Ash sighs in annoyance as he rubs his forehead. He bends down, places the man on his back and begins running down the hall again.

_I need to find a way out._

“Ethereal…”

_Damn this old man! Can’t he shut up!_

“You’re fucking heavy so just shut the fuck up!”

They stop at an elevator and Ash decides to go in. There was no other way to get them both out. They begin to go down but the elevator abruptly stops on the 12th floor. Ash becomes irritated by the securities stupid efforts to keep him here. He pulls the scissors from under his pants and tries to pry open the door with them. When it doesn’t work he looks to Dawson.

“Go down to the floor on your hands and knees. I need your support.”

The old man may be an idiot because of the drug but the doctors made it easy for him to follow commands. He does exactly what Ash asked and right under the escape hatch on the top too. Ash may begin to question how dumb the man actually is.

“Beautiful boy…”

Nope. He’s pretty stupid.

The hatch is opened with the scissors and Ash drags them both to the top of the elevator. The guards pass the elevator.

“Okay, they’re gone.”

He begins to reopen the hatch when two men walk into the elevator. Ash closes it to remain hidden. He hears their muffled speaking as well as the sound of an intercom then the elevator begins to move upwards. It stops and moves again and again.

“What is happening!?” Ash angrily says.

The elevator stops abruptly nearly knocking him off his feet and sending Dawson over the edge. Ash panics and runs to the old man, grabbing his wrist and holding him up with his strength. There are nearly 13 floors of emptiness that they would fall if he let go but the edge of the elevator was digging into his bicep and the pain was flaring through his whole body. Ash gritted his teeth in pain.

The elevator begins moving once again and stops even more harshly than before making Dawson’s grip loosen. To save himself he grabs onto Ash’s leg, making the teen fall and slide off the elevator due to the man’s weight. Ash holds them both up with the small strength in his fingers as they cling to the edge of the elevator. But the pain was even worse now.

Ash looks down to the man clinging to his ankle.

“Hold on, old man.”

With immense will and the absence of the fear of death, Ash reaches down to with one hand and transfers all the weight to the other in the process. He grabs Dawson’s hand but realizes the strength it will take to lift the man up with only one arm was near to impossible. But as Ash stares at Dawson, he realizes that this old man is the only proof he has of the drug and the only proof to end all the madness. To end Golzine and every other asshole who abused this drug in order to gain power. Ash was fueled by the desire to destroy them and he was fueled by the image of those powerful, old men sitting securely in their mansions, giving orders leisurely while Ash suffers on the battlefield. He wanted to end their tyranny!

Ash begins to lift Dawson, his voice coming out in a strained yell as he gathered the impossible strength to lift the old man.

_So close! So goddamn close!_

With a final exerted force of effort, Ash places the man's hands on the edge so that he can hold himself up.

“Hold on.”

Ash lifts himself up to the elevator but has no time to breath knowing that Dawson was not strong enough to hold himself up forever.

_I am not leaving this place empty handed!_

He reaches for Dawson and lifts him up with the last of his strength. The old man is safe and Ash falls to the floor in exhaustion, rapidly breathing from his mouth. He actually did it.

Dawson then stands.

“Beautiful boy…” he whispers.

Ash opens his eyes but remained laying on his back. He was too tired for the old man’s bullshit.

“I need to find the beautiful boy...ethereal...he was ethereal.”

Ash stares at Dawson. His concentration was blurred because of how he’d just exerted himself but Ash could comprehend the fact that the old man was speaking in full sentences. It confused him but he was too tired to care.

Dawson began to walk. Ash felt the vibrations of his footsteps on the hard metal below him.

“He’s down below...all the way down...beautiful boy...I need to find…”

Ash felt sorry for how such a brilliant mind could fall so deep into insanity. The teen lifts his head a bit to see Dawson walking towards the edge. Ash’s senses go into overdrive and he rapidly sits up ready to grab the man.

“What are you doing!?” he screams to Dawson and leaps to pull the old man in.

But he was too late.

Dawson steps over and falls.

Ash just stares wide-eyed into the dark abyss below as the man drops. A second later, the sound of the body hitting the bottom is heard, echoing through the elevator shaft.

Ash breathes rapidly, not realizing he had an outstretched hand out. hopelessly reaching into the abyss. He brings it up and slams it down on the metal in anger.

“Dammit!”

He’s lost his only proof. Great. Just great. All that work. For nothing.

Ash is used to losing but not when he was so close to success.

He opens the elevator hatch and drops down, kicking a security guard in the process. He presses the lowest floor on the elevator panel to no avail.

_Great. They turned off the elevators._

“I have no luck these days” Ash

He exits the elevator through a dust duct from the top once he climbs back up. Ash knows he’s not leaving empty-handed. He has to take another subject with him. He runs through the hall. Guards were walking here and there but Ash was better at sneaking and remaining hidden.

Ash would have to return to the Patient Wing in order to get another patient and that was too far up and had too many people. He was sure that not even he would be able to get out unscathed. And not to mention that Golzine is most likely not giving orders (or Ash would have been at least close to being caught), which meant whoever was would be more willing to shot to kill.

Ash groans in anger. Pulling at his hair with comical anger.

Then it hit him.

_The boy._

Dawson couldn’t have just been randomly saying things, not with how many times he said it and with how he decided to jump. The man had wanted to get to that boy. Badly. But why?

Ash was willing to take the risk and find out. Dawson had said that ‘the boy’ was all the way down.

He must be on the last floor.

The teen finds a laundry room and at the far end of the wall a garbage shoot. He opens the hatch and climbs down a ladder connected to the wall. Ash wonders why he puts himself through all of this as he wrinkles his nose in disgust at the smell permeating from the bottom. Then he hears a hatch open not that far above him. A body is dropped and Ash yelps in surprise but manages to dodge it.

“Oh, God! It reeks in here!” a voice says from the top.

Ash recognizes the voice immediately.

“Max!?” he shouts.

The hatch above him is close to closing when it reopens quickly, the man Ash knew would show his face actually shows his face and Ash doesn’t know whether to feel angry or annoyed at Max’s smile.

“ASH!? IS THAT REALLY YOU!?”

The man shouts through the shoot loudly as if Ash was ten miles down and only a screech would reach him. Ash cringes in annoyance at the sound and the man’s pure inability to remain stealthy and quiet while they were in an enemy’s stronghold.

“WILL YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH, YOU IDIOT!” Ash screams back. Ibe’s shy face peeks out and Max poses an idiotic expression on his face.

“We thought you were still in the lab,” Max says, finally not screaming.

“I was but I escaped,” Ash states blandly, then an annoyed tone takes over, “What are you both doing here?”

Ash knew why (he’d already guessed it) but it seemed even dumber once Max said it.

“We came to rescue you!”

Ash closes his eyes and breathes in to calm himself down. Max and Ibe watch in curiosity from atop. Ash questions how he was the younger one out of the three.

“There’s a ladder,” Ash finally speaks, “Climb down. We’re gonna get out of here.”

Max and Ibe look to the ladder and grab on, fully entering the trash shoot through the hatch. As the three climb down together, Max just has to make idle talk.

“How’d you get away, Ash?”

Ash sighs.

“Definitely not thanks to you guys, I can tell you that,” the teen sassed.

“Well, we didn’t think you’d escape.” Max defends in a tone similar to a child’s.

They reach the bottom and the smell of the garbage is intense.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Ash says, not being in the mood to continue arguing.

“Yeah, this “psychiatric” building is really strange,” Max complains. His words come out scrambled since he’s getting no air through his nose while he pinches it. Ibe nods in agreement to Max.

“I’m not leaving the facility yet,” Ash nonchalantly added.

“What? why?” Ibe and Max say at the same time.

“I need to find evidence of the effects of the Banana Fish drug. I lost Alexis Dawson while trying to escape with him and now I need another person for proof,” Ash states as if it should have been obvious.

“Dawson? As in one of the creators of Banana Fish,” Ibe asks.

“Yeah”

“How’d he get lost?” Max questions.

“He jumped off the top of an elevator and fell 13 stories down.”

“Oh..”

Ash looks around the chute’s walls in search of an exit and finds one rather quickly.

“Come on,” he tells the men as he crawls through the exit and into the cold air outside. Max and Ibe follow after him. Ash peers around the parking lot they’d just wandered into. He notices some emergency vans.

“Both of you get a van and wait for me. I’m going back in,” Ash says with conviction and begins his run to the entrance of the facility only to be stopped by a rough hand on his wrist.

“I’m coming with you,” Max orders.

Ash rolls his eyes.

“No you’ll only slow me down,” Ash complains.

“I’m not letting you go back in there alone. I don’t want to lose you.”

Ash didn’t know how to respond to that, but the teen gives in from pure guilt.

“Fine.”

Max smiles in assurance and lets Ash go.

“I’ll stay here and get the van,” Ibe says.

Max and Ash re-enter the facility.

“So, where do we go?” Max asks, but also just follows Ash as the teen sneaks down the halls to the left.

“I have no idea honestly,” Ash confesses.

Max frowns in disbelief.

“Ash!”

“I only have a clue from a crazy man to go off of okay!”

“What’d he say?”

“He said the boy was “down below”.”

Max stops in his tracks. Ash stops as well.

“A boy...? They even experiment on children here?” Max seethes.

Ash is confounded by the man’s anger especially for the fact that it was completely unnecessary right now.

“They were willing to kill me. They don’t care who they experiment on,” Ash says.

Max clenches his fists in anger and grits his teeth.

“Still doesn’t mean I should be okay with it,” Max retorts.

“Let’s just find this kid. I saw the map already but there aren’t any patients this low down in the facility. And Golzine would never be stupid enough to place a patient so close to the exit.”

“So basically this was a waste,” Max uttered hopelessly.

Ash wonders: _Was it really?_

But there has to be more. Ash thinks back to what the old man had said.

_‘Down below, down below, down below’_

Ash perks up in realization.

“Underground!”

Max is confused.

“This place has an underground?”

“It wasn’t on the map, but it’s the only reasonable explanation for what Dawson was saying even if it was a slim possibility. It was their only shot and Ash’s instincts haven’t failed him before.

“Some of the patients have escaped? Yeah, we’ll be on the lookout,” a gruff voice speaks into a walkie-talkie around the corner. Ash pushes Max to go down the opposite way but obviously, he was too slow. The guard turns the corner and instantly recognizes them.

Ash reaches for his gun but Max grabs him by the scruff of his shirt and drags him down the hall at breakneck speed.

“Let me go! I have to kill him! He saw us!”

But once again it was too late. Ash could hear the guard inform the others on his radio.

_Great._

Ash and Max keep running down the hall and hide in a random room.

The room, however, is small, big enough only to have a hatch on the floor the size of a basement door. One that most likely led…

Underground.

Ash genuinely laughs at his luck.

“Guess we found the way to the underground,” Max states in surprise.

Ash bent down to reach for the door handle only for it to be locked shut. The teen attempts to yank it open and grunts with force but the hatch doesn’t budge.

“I think you need a code,” Max says from behind Ash.

Ash scowls at the adult but considers Max’s idea when he sees a keypad on the wall next to the door.

Ash strides over to it and begins to inspect.

“Any ideas,” Max asks.

“Golzine made this. He uses the same kind of tech on a lock at his mansion for one of his special rooms. This must be his code. There’s just so many possibilities,” Ash comments.

“Well then I guess we better start,” Max joked.

The two hear guards coming down the hall and by the sound of the footsteps, there are quite a few.

Ash turns to the keypad again and thinks of possible clues.

The guards were getting closer.

Ash reaches for his gun.

“They’re coming, Ash,” Max informs nervously as he peers down the hall through the crack in the door.

Ash points at the keypad.

**BANG!**

The hatch behind them opens with a mechanical whirr and reveals a staircase leading into a lighted path.

“Let’s go.”

Ash steadily walks down the stairs, cautious but also excited. Whatever was down here was here for a reason. Golzine or the doctors wanted to hide it. What or who could be so important?

They enter into a hall similar to the ones on the upper floors of the facility. Except there were no doors. The light lit the path in a dull blue haze. It was dark, like straight out of a cliche scary movie. There was no getting lost. There was only one path to follow and the end of it lead to a double-door with another keypad.

“Another one!” Max complains.

Ash brings out his gun.

“It worked the first time,” Ash admits.

He shoots and the doors slide open.

Max and Ash step into a dark lab but the lights turn on once their movement is captured. There was a single machine in the large room. It gave off the sound of a heartbeat monitor and displayed many other things Ash had little motivation to investigate.

Max had wandered off as they both went in there own scavenger hunt for anything valuable. The room was big but not big enough to lose one another.

“Ash...you need to come see this.”

Ash responds quickly to the serious tone of his father-figure.

“I think I found the boy,” Max says, not peeling his eyes off of a huge clear water tank. Ash peers into the water and finally notices him.

A young boy, no older than 15 or 16, was floating in the clear water. His entire body was skinny and lithe and his clothing, a colonial-esque style, consisted of tight brown skins on his thin, long legs, a white loose shirt, brown vest and a thick brown poncho on top of them.  His hair was startling white like snow, and it billowed in the water. The boy’s skin appeared smooth and pale with soft marks. Like the moon. His features were delicate. Thin lips and a small nose. His eyes were closed but Ash could still make out the whiteness of his eyelashes as they rested on his cheeks.

“He’s...beautiful…”

Ash snaps out of his reverie by Max’s voice. Then it dawns on him that the young boy had no breathing mask on.

“He can’t be alive,” Ash snaps, “This was useless. This isn’t proof if the kid is dead.”

Ash glares at the floor in anger for his failure.

“Um...Ash,” Max gets Ash’s attention.

“What?!” Ash responds in an annoyed tone.

“Look..”

Ash turns to the tank and inside the young, ethereal boy begins to flutter his eyes open. Slowly.

And then Ash is staring into the brightest, blue eyes he’d ever seen.

_He’s alive._


	2. The Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max convinces Ash to save Jack, but on their way to a safe place, Ash makes a rapid decision. And Golzine comes to realize what’s been taken from him.

“He’s alive! We need to get him out!”

Max reacts immediately to the boy's eyes fluttering open on the other side of the glass. The older man rushes over to the machine we’d spotted and begins to press random buttons in a panicked effort to release the boy. Ash just continues to stare at the teen in the water, they’re eyes connecting and Ash could see all the patterns in his eyes.

_ Snowflakes?  _ He wonders. 

“Hey, Ash! Mind helping??”

Ash looks over to Max as the ex-soldier continued to crash his palms over random buttons on the machine nearby. Ash inspects the rest of the room, noticing various tables and cabinets filled with papers and mysterious vials of liquid. Ash runs up to them, opening cabinets and shoving vials out of the way as well as papers on the desk. He was in a frenzy in search of something. A remote. A button. A manual. Anything to open the tank and free the boy. 

After one final throw of papers, Ash growls in anger. 

“Nothing is working! Ash! None of these buttons are working!” Max says from his place by the machine, his hands still quickly pressing combinations of buttons. 

Ash quickly raises his head to look at the ceiling when he hears the sound of footsteps and distant yelling from upstairs. 

“Max. We have to go,” Ash says as he reaches for his gun and takes a defensive stance. 

“What?,” the man says, “We can’t just leave the kid in there to drown!”

“He’s probably already dead now! There’s no way anyone could survive that long without air!” Ash yells back.

“But...he opened his eyes. We still have a chance,” Max responds softly. The man walks up to the tank with the young boy still floating in it, his eyes long since having closed. Ash looks at the older man in remorse knowing full well Max’s annoying need to save everyone. He was a soldier after all. 

Ash begins to walk back up the stairs, void of emotion. The teen no longer felt the need to try. He lost all the proof he needed. And now he has to let it go or else risk the old man’s life. Because Ash knows that the older man would want to follow him into the fray if the teen decided to go back to the patient's ward. 

Ash rises up only four steps before he realizes there were no other pair of feet making sound behind him. The teen turns to look behind himself and sees the man back at the machine pressing random buttons. Again.

“Max! Let’s go! It’s hopeless!”

“No, it isn’t!” Max yells and angrily turns to link eyes with Ash, “We have to save him.”

Ash just stares.

“Look at him,” Max instructs. Ash glances to the white-haired boy in the water and quickly turns back to Max. “He doesn’t exactly look ordinary. Golzine probably uses him for his own crazy games just like you. And we have a chance to save him, but you don’t want to? He’s your proof!”

“He might not even be connected to Banana Fish,” Ash retorts. 

Max huffs in impatience. “Why are teenagers so stubborn!”

But then the teen thinks about what Max had just said. Golzine wouldn’t go through all this trouble for nothing. The boy in the water was important. In some way. And even if he wasn’t connected to Banana Fish, he must be connected to Ash’s old owner. Not even Ash would leave someone to suffer with that demon mafia boss. 

Max and Ash hear more footsteps creaking upstairs, more and more guards were running around in search of them. Ash wasn’t sure they wouldn’t find them in here. The teen then goes up to the tank, the blue light from inside glowing off of his own pale skin. Ash then proceeds to bang his fist on different parts of the glass, pressing his ear to the surface to hear the vibrations of each bang. First in one place then in another. 

“Uh...what are you doing?” Max asks.

“Shut up.” Ash continues to bang on the glass. Then one particular bang sparks his curiosity. Ash smiles. “There it is.”

“There what is? What are you gonna do?” Max’s confusion leaks through his panicked tone.

Ash steps back, still looking at the tank of water. He grabs the gun he’d been carrying and opens the ammunition barrel. There was only one bullet left. There was no messing this up. Ash closed the gun and pulled back the safety. He points at the glass, looking straight through the water and at the boy’s sleeping face. 

“You catch him,” Ash says to Max.

“Huh? What do you mea-”

**BANG!**

Ash fires and the bullet flies right through one of the points in the glass he’d been banging his fist on. Max flinches back in surprise and looks to the glass as the sound of cracking is heard followed by the spread of cracked lines originated from the hole Ash had shot. And then, all at once, the entire glass shatters. 

Max registers what happens quickly and races to catch the boy before he fell on one of the glass shards stills protruding from the base of the tank. The water falls in a cascade to the floor, leaving a big puddle that surrounded the broken tank and was slowly traveling through the whole room. Max holds the boy, who had fallen face first into the older man’s chest and waiting arms. 

“Well, that works…” Max smiles at Ash. Ash smirks back.

Then the yells of guards and the sound of boots on the first floor become more apparent. Max shifts the boy, who’s still wet and dripping cold water, his hair sticking to his head. The older man places an arm under the boy's knees and uses his other to lift the boy and hold him close to his chest so neither his arms nor head lolls. 

“Let’s go,” Max says, a determination in his eyes.

Ash nods and throws the useless gun to the floor. They run upstairs and Ash peers into the hallway to see which direction is safer to follow. Ash sees the left is free and silently signals Max to follow him. They needed to play this safe. Ash didn’t have a gun anymore. 

“Hey, I hear something over here.” Ash hears a guard say from around the corner and rushes Max along with the boy in his arms into a door that leads to a closet. Once inside, Ash curses in anger knowing that there was no way they could get out of here with so many guards especially now that there was an extra person to protect. 

“Oh! Barbara!”

“Doctor!”

Ash’s cheeks fluster as he shockingly stares at a doctor and a nurse getting all sensual on the floor. Max just watches in shock as well and then the older man’s eyes brighten up. 

_ Guess he has an idea _ . But when he sees a glint in the man’s eyes, Ash realized what the older man intended.

* * *

 

Ash was gonna kill Max.

The two men walk the floor, each wearing one of the people’s outfits which were in the closet. Max wore the doctor’s lab coat and they had placed the young white haired boy on an inspection table which they could wheel around the halls, hiding him with a white sheet they’d found. Ash, however, was forced to wear the woman’s clothes. 

The teen scowls in anger the whole time. They pass several guards who were frantically searching around for Ash and probably Dawson. One lone guard stopped upon spotting Ash. 

“Hey there, sexy. You new here?” The man said while leering at Ash and eyeing the teen up and down. Ash’s brow twitched in annoyance.

_ Keep up the act. _

“Yes,” Ash responded, in a high-pitched and shy manner. The teen swore he could hear Max chuckle from the other side of the table they were wheeling around. 

“Well how about I make you feel comfortable…,” the guard suggests as he came closer to Ash and reaches a hand out to touch his ass. 

“Get your hands off me!”

Then in a single motion, Ash punches the man right in the face, knocking him out immediately. 

“Kinda rough don’t you think, nurse?” Max jokes.

“Shut up!” Ash yells, “Let’s just get out of here. We managed to get the boy out of the tank but remember that we still have to get to Ibe. Hopefully, he already got a van.”

Max nods in response and the two walk down the hall again. Guards pass them with no suspicion being roused and they then come across the front exit. Outside was still dark and it was still cold once they stepped out. Ash and Max search the parking lot for Ibe and a van at the far corner flashes its lights in response. 

“Well look at that. The old man actually managed to get a car,” Ash sarcastically says. Max and Ash make it to the van quickly and Ibe opens the back door for them.

“What happened? Did you guys find anything?” Ibe asks in a rush. 

“Yeah we found someone,” Max answers, as he waves to Ibe to come down and help him lift the surgical table that held the boy into the van. Ash jumped onto the van behind them, and after one last glance around for any more guards, closes the door. 

“Someone?” Ibe asks once he and Max set the table down. 

Max lifts the white sheet they had used to cover the boy up so that the guards wouldn’t notice him. Ibe looks down at the boy in curiosity and his eyes haze over. He was just as mesmerized by the young boy as Max was. 

“He was in there?” Ibe asks, and reaches down to wipe away the water on the boys face with his sleeve. It was useless though because of how the boy was completely soaked. 

“He was hidden underground,” Ash informs, “Max go up to the front and drive us out of here.”

Max nods and heads to the wheel. 

Ibe continues to stare at the white-haired boy in wonder.

“He looks...different,” Ibe says, obviously not being able to find the words to describe the boy. “Did they experiment on him?”

“We don’t know. But I took him anyway.”

“Only ‘cause I told you to!” Max shouts from the front of the van, which he had started up. The rumble of the engine courses through the back room and causes the lips of the unconscious boy on the table to part.

“Whatever,” Ash retorts.

Ibe continues to stare at the boy on the table in a mesmerized state. Ash speaks.

“Guess you were too interested in the kid to notice the fact that I’m dressed as a woman,” Ash says to the Japanese man. 

Ibe cuts off his staring, jumping at Ash’s words. The man finally runs his eyes down Ash’s form and notices the white nurse dress the teen was sporting. 

“Um...why are you in a-”

“Don’t ask,” Ash cuts him off. 

“You want my jacket.”

“Yes.”

Ash wore Ibe’s jacket and had moved up to the front seat next to Max as the man continued to drive. Ibe insisted on staying in the back to watch the sleeping boy. 

In the meantime, Ash was left to wonder exactly who he had rescued. And from what? Had the old man been experimenting on him? Is that why he was so pale and had white hair? 

Ash’s head ached with all the questions, but there was one question that seemed to hold precedence over all the rest in his head. 

“Where’s Eiji?”

Max glances at Ash for a split second, then refocuses his eyes on the road. The older man’s face had become serious. 

“After your fight with Arthur, Eiji was taken in by the police, along with everyone else that was watching. We tried to get him out but someone paid his bail and took him out before we could.”

“Who?” 

“We don’t know. All we managed to find out was that he was out of jail.”

There was silence. Max hears no response from the teen. He lets his eyes wander over to Ash, his face, however, remained facing the road. 

“Ash?”

“Where are we?” Ash asks. Since he’d been in the back of the ambulance van the whole time, Ash didn’t know where Max had begun to take them.

“We’re near Central Park. I’m taking us somewhere safe where we can keep the kid. At least until he wakes up,” Max answers. 

“Well give me the address and then you’re gonna have to drop me off,” Ash responds. 

“What?? Why??,” Max asks, yet still brings the car to a slow stop. The older man had learned to do what the teenager says when he says it the first time.

Ash doesn’t respond. He begins to open the door only to realize he was completely naked except for the jacket Ibe had given him. 

“Ash,” Max begins, the car having come to a stop, “Are you gonna go look for Eiji?”

“I can’t relax unless I know he’s safe,” Ash says, determination apparent in his stern voice and strong emerald eyes as they stared into Max’s very soul. Like Max had thought before, there was nothing Ash wouldn’t do for Eiji.

“And I need your clothes,” Ash says. 

Max’s eyes widen.

“Really?”

“Really”

“Guess you should change in the back then,” Max says and exits the driving seat. Ash covers himself up with the oversized jacket and goes out into the cold air. Once he got to the back, Max had already opened the van door, so Ash just climbs in and closes the door behind himself. 

Ibe was still sitting near the white haired boy, who still slept on the table we’d wheeled him in on. Ibe had placed the blanket over the boy for warmth although he had already managed to dry.  

“Why’d we stop?” Ibe asks.

“Ash needs to change,” Max answers, as he began to take off his white lab coat. 

“You’re leaving?” Ibe turns to ask Ash.

Ash just stares in remorse at the man.

“I need to find Eiji.” 

Ibe’s face falls. Ash concludes that the man must’ve known Ejii was lost but also hadn’t told Ash. 

Ash’s eyes look over to the boy on the table once again.

“Take care of him,” Ash begins, “But also be wary. I have no idea who this kid is or why Golzine had him but we can assume it was for something important, especially if he was kept so hidden.”

Ibe and Max nod in agreement as they all continued to stare in fascination and curiosity at the unconscious white-haired boy. Max had taken off all his clothes, except for his boxers. Ash handed the brown jacket he had on and quickly began to fit himself into the oversized trousers and shirt. 

“Well, it’s better than nothing I guess,” Ash says scornfully to clothes. 

“Ash, do you even know where to start?” Max asks.

Ash looks over at Max. For the first time in a while, Ash pays close attention to the look of care the older man held in his eyes. The blonde had known for a while that Max was like a father figure to him, and Ash was like a son to him. It is mutual respect and care. But in the end, the man underestimates him because of his age and looks. Just like everyone else. All except for Eiji.

But Ash still gives a smirk to the man as he fixes the lab coats white collar. 

“I know this city as if it was my own backyard.”

And with that, Ash was out of the van and walking into the city streets, Ibe and Max left to care for the mystery boy. None of them knowing what kind of world they had gotten themselves into by rescuing the white-haired boy.

* * *

 

“How could they have gotten away!?”

Zakharev was heated. He, in not a million years, would have guessed being beaten by a teenage boy was even possible. And yet here he was, banging the security cameras in a white rage for having been given the slip. 

Golzine watched from the back of the room, his eyes and face once again being unreadable and void of emotion. However, if you looked close enough, you could note the slight twinges and creases of his brows as he was beginning to drown in annoyance and anger. Zakharev had been given power over Golzine’s project and had failed. 

Zakharev turned to Golzine.

“Why didn’t you warn me!?”

“Why didn’t you listen?” Golzine answers calmly. 

Zakharev opened his mouth to let out another rage-filled comment at the only person he had to relieve his anger, but at that moment the door to the security room was opened by a guard.

“Sir! We have found Dawson!”

Zakharev let an expression of relief easily fall over his face, his poker-face a non-existent skill. 

“Get him back to his room,” Zakharev orders.

The guard fidgets with nervousness, his mouth opening, and closing in an effort to say something else.

“Well...sir...we only found his body,” the guard says.

“What? His body?”

“He fell, sir. He fell four stories down the elevator shaft.”

Golzine quirked an eyebrow in curiosity. Ash hadn’t left with him? Ash had let his only evidence die? How careless of him. 

“Shit!” Zakharev yells in anger, but then his voice falls in hope, “At least the brat didn’t take any evidence.”

But like if the world was against him, the guard had something else to say. 

“Sir... the guards on the first floor, they’re reporting that they saw Ash and another man running through the halls carrying a boy.”

Golzine’s eyes widen in suspicion and fear.  _ He couldn’t have found him? _

“A boy?” Zakharev asks in confusion, “We weren’t experimenting on any children.”

“What did the boy look like?” Golzine demands, ignoring Zakharev and speaking directly to the guard. The guard nervously cowers from Golzines demanding and determined tone. 

“Um...they were saying he had white hair...that’s the only defining feature they remember.”

Once the guard said that Golzine rushes past them all into the hall and over to the elevator, pushing aside the guard with questionable strength.

“Golzine! Do you know who that kid took!?” Zakharev yelled, as he hurriedly followed behind the old man. It was painfully obvious Zakharev was attempting to keep control over the situation but he was failing miserably. Golzine ignored the man. He was focused on panickingly going down to the first floor. The two men and two other brave guards that followed began to lower to the first floor. The painfully slow elevator made Golzine all the more worried and fearful. 

_ Ash couldn’t have found him. He couldn’t have.  _

Once on the first floor, Zakharev kept throwing questions and weak orders at Golzine. Golzine just followed a mental path. He knew exactly where to go. 

And once they were at the door, Golzine didn’t hesitate to open it.

Golzine knew he should’ve expected it, but it still angered him to the core to see the hatch leading underground slit open slightly. The panel on the wall was shot through and for some reason that had allowed for the hatch to open. Golzine was angered. That Lynx of his was too smart and too lucky for his own good. 

Golzine knelt down and lifted the broken hatch door, revealing the staircase that went down into the dimly lit, dark hall. 

“What is this?” Zakharev asks, but his tone was more confused then commanding. Golzine once again ignores him. 

The old man carefully steps down into the hall, not caring the least that three pairs of footsteps were following him. All that he was paying attention to was the flicker of the lights and the door at the end of the hallway. It was open, the panel shot out again. 

Golzine steps into the room, his feet breaking the wet glass that lied on the ground. Papers were thrown everywhere. The cabinets were open and all the materials were thrown out in hast. It was a mess. And at the center of the room, where the tank that held the mystery boy was meant to be, was only a cracked base, glass and water surrounding it.  _ He’s gone _ . 

Golzine’s suspicions were proven right. The old man clenched his fists and gritted his teeth in seething anger. 

“Golzine! I demand you tell me what this place is!? You aren’t authorized to hold an extra experiment under our noses!” Zakharev yells.

Golzine remained in silence. And then in one quick movement, the old man turned and brought the gun he’d hidden up to Zakharev’s chest. And he shot. And shot again. And again. 

The guards watch in fear and back up, away from the old man. Zakharev’s body fell to the ground with a dull thump. Golzine’s eyes were hazed over with pure rage. 

“This is my project. I run this place and I run all of you. If you disagree then you can suffer the consequences,” Golzine says to the two guards that were watching, conflicted as to what to do. But for some reason, Golzine’s commanding voice and tone and determination reach them. They remain listening intently for what all pawns waited for: orders. And Golzine has some to give. 

“Find me Ash Lynx now! I need him alive!”

And with that, the guards run out to convey the order to the rest of Golzine’s men. In the meantime, Golzine himself had to call someone. He needed help now more than ever. Ash needed to be stopped. He’d choke and bleed the boy out with his own hands. 

The old man begins his trek out to the hall again when he notices one cabinet still closed. It was metal and sturdy and the only way to open it was with a combination of the key lock which only one person knew: him. 

Golzine approached the safe, which he’s now identified. And he hoped that what was meant to be inside was inside. With a turn and a click, the safe resting in the cabinet opened and inside was a single vial. The smirk that crept up Golzine’s face would not have warmed anybody’s heart. His expression gave off the feeling of smugness and confidence. The vial was a mystery to anyone else but he knows exactly the power it holds. And with it, along with a little help from afar, he’ll utterly destroy his Lynx.  

And he would have Jack Frost once again. 


End file.
